


press play

by havisham



Series: havisham's SASO 2017 works collection [62]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, Incongruous Fluff, Isolation, M/M, Mystery, Possible Character Death, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rescue, Snuff, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-09 02:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Aomine in his bedroom with a snuff film.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wildcard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard/gifts).



> Written for SASO 2017, Bonus Round Five: Clue, for [the prompt:](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=15083752#cmt15083752%0A) Kagami &/ (Aomine, Kuroko, Kise, Akashi), ???/Kagami, Aomine in his bedroom with a snuff film.

There was a package waiting for him when Daiki got home from school. 

His mother, who picked up their letters from the mailbox every morning, had left it in front of his door, along a note admonishing him on the disastrous state of his room. She’d stopped venturing in there years ago, but that didn’t stop her from nagging. Daiki slipped on his headphones and threw his book bag and the package in the corner and went to take a bath and get something to eat. 

After dinner and a few half-hearted stabs at homework, Daiki’s curiosity got the better of him. He opened up the package and saw, to his disappointment, that it was just an unmarked DVD-R, the kind his older brother used to hoard a few years ago. Was it meant to go to him? But no -- he reexamined the address on the package. It said Aomine Daiki, along with his address, as plain as can be. 

Maybe it was game footage that Satsuki was trying to trick him into watching? She knew he wasn’t interested in that kind of thing. But still -- he should watch, right? Just in case she asked him about it and he could feign ignorance about it more accuracy. 

It was running for only seconds until Daiki realized it wasn’t game footage at all. Instead, the screen showed a shadowy bedroom and two people fucking on the bed. Daiki didn’t understand what was happening. Why had someone sent him what looked like amatuer porn? He looked harder at the screen -- the video quality was fucking atrocious, like it had been filmed through black pantyhose or something -- and realized that it was two guys fucking. No big breasts at all, so absolutely nothing like Daiki’s usual taste in AVs. 

He was about to turn it off in disgust when one of the guys looked up to the camera and with a sick jolt, Daiki recognized him. It was Kagami. It had to be. Who else would have those dumb-looking eyebrows and that body that Daiki, at least privately, had to admit was amazing?

Had Kagami sent this to him? That was … twisted. Sick. Why did he think Daiki cared about who he fucked? The guy who Kagami was with pushed him down again and kept fucking him. It didn’t look comfortable. Kagami didn’t look happy to be there. When he started screaming, Daiki knew it wasn’t because he felt pleasure. 

He muted the volume and made sure that his door was closed. The last thing he needed was for his mom to come in and see what he was watching. 

Anyway, he should stop. What Kagami did in the privacy of his own home wasn’t Daiki’s business. He didn’t know why he had sent this to him, but the best thing to do would be not to respond, right? But still, he took out his phone and scrolled over to his contacts. 

On screen, things had taken a turn for the worse. The guy was choking out Kagami -- who was fighting back, but weakening visibly at every passing moment. 

“What the fuck,” Daiki muttered. He called Kuroko. 

“Aomine-kun?” Kuroko’s voice sounded sleepy, as if Daiki had woken him up. But it was only ten o’clock, so he didn’t feel guilty about it. “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing,” Daiki snapped. “Tetsu, give me Kagami’s number, would you?” 

“What? Why?” 

“Never mind why, just give it to me.” 

Kuroko yawned and gave him the number. Daiki ended the call and punched in the number Kuroko had given him. On the screen, Kagami lay still. From his eyes, it was clear that he was dead. 

Daiki wanted to vomit. Kagami’s phone kept ringing. What had happened to him? He wasn’t involved with Kagami at all, they just played basketball together sometimes. Daiki hadn’t even planned on confessing to him. How had his killer known to send Daiki this horror? 

Suddenly, the call picked up. “Hello? Aomine?” It was Kagami, and he sounded irritated and very much alive. “Kuroko texted me that you wanted to talk. What’s up? Aomine? Are you still there? What the fuck, man…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was not supposed to happen! I blame everyone.

It was midnight and someone was pounding on Taiga’s door so hard that it was shaking. This kind of thing didn’t happen in this complex and he contemplated calling the police -- if his neighbors hadn’t already done so. “Oi, Kagami!” shouted the person behind the door, and Taiga looked through the peephole to see Aomine staring at him. He looked … crazy, sweating and wearing what looked like pajama bottoms and a jacket that he’d thrown on. 

“Open the door, Bakagami! I know you’re there!” 

“The hell are you doing? I’m not opening the door,” Taiga said. He knew that was something was up with Aomine after that weird, abortive call from him earlier -- Aomine had never called him before, hadn’t come to his apartment since Kuroko’s birthday party. Taiga was actually surprised that he’d remembered where he lived. 

“Come on, come on,” Aomine said. He looked like he was about to cry. “ _Please._ ” 

Aomine was Kuroko’s friend, not Taiga’s, but he couldn’t have him crying outside his door like that. Taiga opened the door -- and Aomine burst in before he could change his mind. All at once, Taiga knew it was a mistake. Aomine started pacing around like a caged animal, looking around suspiciously. He turned his attention back to Taiga, really staring at him like he expected to see -- well, _something_. 

After a long moment, Aomine said, “This is going to sound weird…” 

“It is already weird,” Taiga said. “What are you doing here, and why did you call me earlier?” 

“Someone sent me --” Taiga had never seen Aomine look so unsure. “You have to believe me, because someone sent me a-a video. Of you. And it was -- bad. Really bad. I thought they’d killed you and I didn’t understand why they sent it to me. But you’re alive and I-I don’t know what I saw.” 

“Aomine,” Taiga said calmly, “are you on something right now?” 

“No! Where’s your remote, I’ll show you right now,” Aomine said, going over to Taiga’s TV and bent down to root around the stacks of DVDs and games until he found the remote. 

“I’m not watching weird porn with you!” Taiga said, approaching him cautiously. 

Aomine looked at him, eyes blank. “I should’ve asked if you actually do porn. My bad. Do you?” 

Taiga blushed fiercely. “The fuck are you talking about! I don’t --” 

“Okay,” Aomine said, standing up. “Then I think you should watch this.” 

*

It wasn’t him. 

It couldn’t be him -- Taiga had never -- he was a fucking _virgin_ , for God’s sake. He wanted to turn it off as soon as it got violent, but for some reason his hands stayed by his side. Aomine wasn’t watching it -- he was watching him, his eyes sharp and hungry. 

“You see it, right?” 

Taiga kept watching, even as the person on the screen -- the person he couldn’t think of as himself -- twitched and moaned weakly. He was dying. Taiga was watching someone die and he couldn’t understand why. He turned away at last and stared at Aomine. 

“What the fuck,” Taiga said calmly, “did you do.” 

“I didn’t _do_ anything -- a package came to my house and --” 

“You think I’m going to believe that shit?” Taiga got up and grabbed Aomine by the collar and hauled him up. Aomine was heavy, but he wasn’t fighting Taiga as much as he could be. It made things a little easier. “Get out of my house.” 

Aomine, who was squirming in his grasp, seemed to sag in a little bit. He allowed Taiga to propel him towards the door, gathering the jacket he’d dropped along the way. 

“Kagami, listen,” he said, as Taiga closed the door in his face. He didn’t go away and Taiga stood at the other side of the door, listening to him breath. Aomine leaned heavily against the door and said, quietly enough that Taiga could only hear if he pressed close, “I think I’m supposed to save you.”


	3. Chapter 3

After that, Daiki resolved to keep a close eye on Kagami. He would skip out early from practice to make his way to Seirin and be waiting at the gates when Kagami and Tetsu came out after practice. 

Kagami had become very flustered the first time he did this, acting so weird that even Tetsu looked at him curiously. But there were some things that even Tetsu’s pale blue gaze couldn’t penetrate and this was one. Daiki slung a casual arm around Kagami’s shoulder and another around Tetsu’s. “How about we play a game -- two against one?” 

“Pardon me, Aomine-kun,” Tetsu said, wriggling out of Daiki’s grasp. “I need to go home right away. I cannot be killed playing against you today.” 

“You lack endurance as always, Tetsu,” Daiki said with a chuckle. “How about you, Bakagami?” 

Kagami shrugged. They walked Tetsu to the station and once he left them, Kagami turned to look at Daiki, his eyes unreadable. Whatever approximation of friendliness he’d been showing so far seemed to be for Tetsu’s benefit and nothing else. 

“Stalker,” he said, and Daiki wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. 

“Hey, I’m not --” 

“We’re not friends, you know. Just because you brought weird porn to my house one time, we don’t have -- any kind of relationship.” 

“Shit, I’m not doing this because we’re friends, idiot,” Daiki snapped. “I just don’t want what happened to happen -- you know, to you.” 

“It’s not going to happen to me. That wasn’t me.” Kagami said this firmly, like he’d repeated this over and over in his head until he believed. 

Daiki sighed and pushed the hair from his eyes. “Okay. It’s not you. Do you still want to play?” To his surprise, Kagami nodded, decisively. They made their way to the street basketball court closest to Kagami’s house and played until dusk, and then after. 

Without a doubt, it was fun, playing against Kagami. Even in a casual game like this, without any stakes besides their pride, he still gave it his all. Daiki was fresher -- having skipped a major part of practice would do that -- but he still rose to the challenge of it, of keeping Kagami at bay. 

In the end, he won three games and Kagami had won two. “Next time, I’ll beat you,” Kagami promised, wiping the sweat from his forehead. 

“Huh? You’re gonna play against me again?” Daiki said, faintly mocking. 

“Shut up. Give me your phone,” Kagami said, and Daiki handed it over with a heavy sigh. Kagami tapped in his contact info -- Daiki had his number already, thanks to Tetsu, but when Kagami handed it back, he saw that the other boy had added his Line username and his email address. 

“Thanks,” Daiki said with a grin. 

“Don’t be weird,” Kagami said, and he blushed. 

*

It became a thing for them -- meet up on Fridays and play. Sometimes Tetsu would join them, and when Kise learned about it, he would show up occasionally demand to play two-on-two with them. 

*

It was easy to forget how all it began. From the court, it was easy to follow Kagami home and demand to be fed, and bafflingly, Kagami didn’t throw him out more than half of the time. Instead, he made enough for both of them and they ate together. It was almost companionable -- Daiki thought it was possible that Kagami was pretty lonely for human company most of the time, and even Daiki passed muster with him. 

And then Daiki had to go and blow it. 

They’d been bickering about the best kind of convenience store food -- it was obvious to Daiki that it was karaage, but Kagami was being dumb and stubborn when Daiki, on an impulse that he couldn’t pin down and examine, surged up and kissed Kagami right on his big, dumb mouth and doing so, he swallowed up all of Kagami’s breath, his wrong opinions on food and also -- 

Kagami was staring at him, eyes wide. “What did you do that for?” 

Daiki blinked, recovered and said, with careful indifference, “Because I wanted to. You should see your face right now. It’s hilarious, you look like you swallowed a frog.” 

“You’re not even -- you’re obsessed with boobs!” 

“Boobs are objectively great, Bakagami. What, you’re against them or something?” 

“I don’t have an opinion on them,” Kagami said seriously. This was impossible and Daiki stared at him in horror. Kagami went on, like he hadn’t just said something unacceptable, “Why did you kiss me?” 

“I -- uh,” Daiki looked down. He thought about lying, pretending that he hadn’t liked Kagami from almost the first moment he’d seen him. He did like girls, he did like boobs but he also like -- Kagami. He didn’t see anything inconsistent with that. He liked curves and strong bodies and maybe it was weird to think that, but Kagami did have both. “I like you, I guess. Don’t make a big deal about it.” 

“You like me? Since when?” 

“Since you beat me during the Winter Cup,” Daiki said, rolling his eyes. _Obviously_. 

Suddenly, Kagami was grinning. “You know, Aomine, you’re pretty easy.” 

“S-shut up! I’m not a slut!” 

“No I meant --” Kagami sighed. “Fuck if I know. This is weird.” 

“You rejecting me, Bakagami?” 

“Shut up, Ahomine. No, I guess I’m not.” Kagami looked at him -- really looked at him, and crap did he have an intense pair of eyes. “I wanna go slow. Can you do that?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Daiki said carelessly. He wasn’t sure what Kagami meant by going slow, but he’d figure it out as they went along. 

*

Months passed. Daiki’s second year of high school started and if he didn’t already know that the athletic department was pulling strings to move him along with the rest of his cohort, he knew now. His final exam grades had been dismal as always, but still he passed -- somehow. 

Daiki wasn’t stupid, at least, he didn’t believe he was. It was just that school and everything about it besides basketball, held a negative amount of interest for him. In class he could barely keep his eyes open -- why did school have to start so early, anyway? There was no way anyone was awake enough to deal with this shit either -- but he got through it, escaping to the roof only when he really needed to. 

When Satsuki came looking for him, he wasn’t sleeping, just looking up at the sky. She sat next to him with a sigh and asked him what was wrong. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Daiki said diffidently. 

“Something is,” Satsuki said firmly. “You’ve been different lately, Dai-chan. You go to practice more and don’t even torture Sakurai-kun so much. What’s changed?” 

“Nothing!” 

She gave him a shrewd look and he scowled at her, aware she was analyzing him from head to toe. Then she snapped her fingers together. “Could it be that Dai-chan is in love?”

“Don’t be stupid!” Daiki said, springing up. “Honestly, it’s always love, love, love with you. I’m going to practice.” 

“But that’s where I want you to go, Dai-chan!” Satsuki said to him cheerfully as he left. 

*

“Kagami, I want to do it,” Daiki muttered into Kagami’s ear, breathing heavily. They’d been making out on Kagami’s couch, hot and heavy and he wanted to have sex so badly it made his head spin. Kagami pulled away, his face bright red. 

“What do you mean ‘it’?” 

“You want me to spell it out? It. You know, _it._ ” 

“Are you embarrassed to say aloud?” 

“What? No! It’s sex, all right? I want sex.” 

“Ah. Aomine, are you a virgin too?” 

“Are you stupid? Look at me! Do I look like a virgin to you?” 

“You can’t tell these things by looking at someone, _stupid._ ” 

Suddenly the atmosphere changed and Daiki sighed, getting up. He untangled himself from Kagami’s arms and got up and stretched, his shirt riding up his stomach. He could tell Kagami was looking at him, pretty intensely, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. 

Not looking at him directly, Daiki muttered, “The thing is, Kagami, you seem like a good guy. I wouldn’t mind doing it with you.” 

Kagami opened his mouth to reply when suddenly the doorbell rang. Daiki looked at him curiously. “Are you expecting anyone?” 

Kagami shook his head. “Not really. Maybe it’s a package or something?” He got up and went to the door. Daiki followed behind him, half-relieved for the interruption.

“Kagami, I’m hungry,” he whined as Kagami opened the door. Kagami looked at him distracted, when everything went painfully white. 

*

Daiki woke up what felt like hours later. He was alone in darkened room -- it was blankly impersonal, like a hotel room -- and in front of him, he could see a tiny red light, like a video camera set to record. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooh, so I know I said this would be the last chapter, but it obviously didn't work out that way. I thought the tension needed to be built up a little more and also to have Aomine and Kagami have some kind of relationship before it all goes to heck.


	4. Chapter 4

Taiga kept fighting until he couldn’t fight anymore. He kept thinking about that video, the way his body had gone limp and unresponsive at the end. It was better that, if he had to die, he would make all of them pay with every ounce of strength in his body, and with every tear and every gash. Eventually, someone hit him over the head with something heavy and he went down, but he kept thinking, _this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening._

He knew that his dad had enemies, that some people who weren’t at all pleased with the wealth and success that the Kagami family enjoyed. But he’d never thought that he would be involved in this sort of thing at all -- Taiga had no interest in business, he just wanted to play ball.

He woke up in what looked like a hotel room, although all the windows painted over and had bars on them and all but one of the doors were locked and immovable. 

The front door had a narrow slot in it, maybe originally intended for delivering mail or something. At some point when Taiga had been unconscious, a small tray with a bowl of soup and a protein bar had been slid through the slot. 

Both things looked like they had been tampered with. Taiga’s stomach roared in hunger and he tried his luck with the bar. It made him sick anyway, and he burst through only unlocked door in the room, which led to a small bathroom. There was a toilet and a sink, with no shower or bathtub. There were no mirrors either, but he was pretty sure he looked like a mess anyway. He vomited up what was left in his stomach and rubbed the sore spot on his head, where the pipe or stick or whatever it had been, had hit him, 

The light overhead started to flicker and he looked up. There was a bare lightbulb there and if he could just _jump --_

* 

The next time someone delivered the tainted food to Taiga’s cell, he was ready. Only some fingers and top of someone’s palm was visible but Taiga stabbed what he could reach anyway. The person on the side of the door howled in fury. 

The tray and bowl came hurdling towards him and crashed on the floor. “Fine, don’t eat then, you little bitch,” hissed the person on the other side of the wall. 

“Let me go,” Taiga said, “let both of us go and I won’t --” 

“You’re not in a position to negotiate, idiot.” 

They don't feed him for another three days. He drank the water from the tap in the bathroom and tried to make as many weapons from the room’s furnishings as he could. He broke off the legs from the only chair in the room and sharpened it into stakes. The legs on the bed he made into clubs and he shattered the glass shade from the lights to throw at their faces. He was ready when the time came for them to open the door. 

He waited. The only way he could tell the passing of time was the faint graduations of light and leached in from the blocked windows and how the muffled sound of traffic ebbed and flowed outside his prison. 

He wondered if Kuroko and the rest of the Seirin basketball team thought about him, if they even knew he was missing. He missed them, desperately. Their faces would float up in the confused muddle of his mind and sometimes he’d talk to them. He didn’t know if this was a coping mechanism or he was just going crazy. 

A week into his imprisonment -- they were feeding him again -- and the door began to rattle. Taiga, who had been snoozing in bed, got up and got ready to attack, a chair-spear ready in his hand. And he almost skewered Aomine that way. Aomine’s eyes were dull and his body slack -- he’d obviously been drugged. The door slammed close behind him, before Taiga could reach it. 

Aomine’s body leaned heavily against him, and Taiga thought he might have passed out except he stirred after a bit and looked at him. “Oh, you’re here too?” he said, looking surprised. 

Taiga slapped him.

Something sharpened in Aomine’s gaze and it made Taiga’s stomach squeeze in both relief and fear. 

*

“They say if we fuck, they’ll let us go,” Aomine said, when he was less out of it. He’d laid across the bed, arms out like a cross. He lifted his head up a little bit and looked at Taiga. “You know that’s bullshit right? You saw the video.” 

“I saw the video,” Taiga said, pacing around the room. “The other guy…” 

“Couldn’t see him. Don’t care.” 

“It was you.” 

Aomine sat up. “Shut the fuck up,” he said seriously. “I’m not killing anybody.” 

Taiga sighed and threw himself onto the bed and pushed Aomine to make room, despite his grumbling. He allowed himself a measure of relief that whatever happened, at least he wasn’t alone anymore.

*

He woke up to burning hot lights and a bevy of people surrounding him. Someone had washed him and dressed him in a plain white t-shirt and a pair of boxers. And instead of an empty hotel room, it seemed like he was in a studio somewhere. There were people fixing lighting, and others hurrying to and fro on work that he had no idea of. Kagami sat up and saw that Aomine was once again missing. But one of the people came forward with a smile. “Kagami-kun, are you ready to start?” 

“What’s going on?” 

“Just a brief shoot, and then we can all go home. I’m sure you want to, right?” 

“Let me go home right now.” 

He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. The man looked like a high school math teacher or something. Completely ordinary, and yet -- “You signed a release, you know.” 

“Fuck off, I’m underaged. Nothing I sign under duress is valid anyway.” 

The man looked impressed. “You’re not as stupid as you seem. Well, anyway, here comes your co-star.” And Aomine got dragged in, his eyes full of dread and a big, purple bruise on his right cheek that looked throbbing and painful. 

“Taiga, I’m sorry -- I’m --” 

“Is he going to start crying again?” said the man to one of his assistants. “This one’s kind of a chickenshit.” 

“I’m sorry, Director-san. They tried to sedate him earlier, but he won’t perform well if he’s too --” 

“Hey, wait,” Taiga said loudly. “I really need to take a shit.” 

“And who _gives_ a shit, young man?” said the director. “If need be, we’ll film it.” 

The assistant whispered something like _not in demand_ in his ear. The director sighed deeply and snapped his fingers, summoning a big, burly guy from the door. Speaking to Taiga, he said, “If you try to do anything, this big bastard here will slit your throat and rape the hole. Got it, kiddo?” 

Taiga nodded. He had it. 

*

He took a good, long while in the bathroom. There was some cleaner and a scrub-brush the he could use -- maybe he’d squirt some of the cleaning solution into the guy’s eyes and run and get help. What would become of Aomine, then? He couldn’t leave him, but he was so far away… 

The guard pounded on the door. “Time’s up, you little shit.” 

Taiga took a deep breath and swung the door open. He threw the cleaning solution directly into the guy’s face and watched as his face twisted in rage. “You little fuck--” 

He didn’t finish the sentence because someone hit him in the back with a tireiron and he went down. Behind him was -- Aomine. Or it _was_ Aomine, but it was also not. Taiga stared at him. This Aomine looked older -- maybe in his twenties or something -- and he was even taller than the one he knew. And of course, he didn’t have a bruise on his cheek. 

“Hey, Bakagami, long time no see,” said the older Aomine, with a familiar, arrogant grin. It suited him very well and Taiga’s heart was beating very hard in his chest. “Come with me if you want to live.” 

Taiga took the fallen guard’s mobile and Aomine took his gun. Taiga dialed the number for emergency services. It was a bit of a garble, explaining the situation while running pell-mell through what seemed like the endless series of corridors, trying to find the studio Aomine was in. 

“Please, trace this call, please find us,” Taiga said to the woman on the other end of the line. “I’m Kagami Taiga, I’ve been missing for a while --” 

“We know who you are, Kagami-kun! Don’t worry, we’ll find you --” 

“Ah, here we go,” Aomine said, grabbing Taiga’s hand and pulling him into Studio # 13, which was in chaos. There were people fleeing and guys in SWAT uniforms rushing past to-and-fro. Aomine rushed towards Taiga and enveloped him in a crushing hug. He shot a suspicious look at the other Aomine, who shrugged off his younger self’s glare like it was nothing. 

“Kagami, what the _fuck_ \--” Aomine said, his voice shaking. 

“You’re really slow,” the older Aomine said chiddingly. “Surely you realized the situation wasn’t normal when you got the DVD? Alternative universe, shit like it, it’s all possible. Go ask Tetsu.” 

Aomine kept staring at him. “You killed your Kagami.” 

The smile slipped off the older Aomine’s face like it had never been. “Fuck off,” he said coolly. Instead, he focused his attention on Taiga for a moment. He pushed the hair off Taiga’s face -- Taiga tried not to flinch at his touch -- and looked at him fondly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you before. Also, hey, you idiot -- don’t forget to mail the DVD.” 

“What are you talking about?” Aomine groused, but the older Aomine shrugged and slipped away -- and just in time, since a group of officers were approaching them. But it was like they hadn’t registered the older Aomine’s presence at all -- all their questions were about Taiga and Aomine’s wellbeing. An ambulance unit was standing by and as Taiga looked around, he saw that there were other, dazed looking people being led away by the police. This had been bigger than him and Aomine’s struggles after all. 

Taiga was given a blanket and something to drink. He wanted to go home and sleep. But still he couldn’t help turning to Aomine and saying, “I guess the only one who could beat you was really you, huh?” 

“Man, shut up,” Aomine said, sniffling miserably. “Bakagami.” 

But Taiga, for the first time since this whole thing began, began to laugh. “Make me, Ahomine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end here, folks! Hope you enjoyed the ride and don't be like Director-san.


End file.
